Right here beside you
by Loz06
Summary: A dinner organized by CJ to lift staff morale, does little for Leo who faces his testimony the following day it's Margaret who finally gets him to open up.


Title: Right here beside you.

Author: Loz 

E-Mail: loz06@yahoo.com

Rating: PG

Category: Leo/Margaret

Series: Stand-alone

Spoilers: Early S3

Archive (if applicable): The National Library http://westwingstories.com/library

Feedback: The good, the bad and the very ugly it's all appreciated. 

Summary: A dinner organized by CJ to lift staff morale, does little for Leo who faces his testimony the following day; it's Margaret who finally gets him to open up.

Author's Notes: An eJay challenge and I'M SO DEAD cause I can't remember the thingies that made up the challenge.

Disclaimers: Never was, never has been, never will be.

*

"So a priest, a monk and a rabbi walk into a bar." Josh slurs laughing hysterically at nothing.

"Oh my." Donna sighs picking up her wine glass.

"And the bartender says is this a joke." Toby says sullenly swirling his scotch with one hand and inhaling another puff of his cigar with the other.

"Toby!" Josh protests at his spoilt joke.

"Where's the food?" CJ asks looking in the direction of the kitchen.

"We should toast." Sam distracts picking up his own glass. "Merry Christmas."

"To good friends." Donna adds.

"To the New Year." CJ contributes.

"May the hearings turn up nothing that isn't true." Margaret says softly. Around the table where the Senior Staff and their assistants have been enjoying each other's company during a Christmas meal, the mood turns somber. "I'm sorry." Margaret apologizes.

"To a favorable outcome at the hearings." Toby says quietly lifting his glass.

"To the hearings." Leo says below everyone else, looking directly at Margaret. His testimony is looming and Margaret can't decipher the look that has been plaguing his features in the week up to now. In public he makes jokes and laughs, in private he's more reserved, not stressed or worried about his upcoming testimony but something. Something that even Margaret, who's known him the longest, second only to his family and the President, can't define.

She suspects there's something he knows, something weighing on his mind, something that makes him a liability to the President.

"Are you all right?" Margaret asks leaning over the table so the other can't hear her.

"I'm fine." Leo assures her sliding his hand over towards hers and then over the top of it patting it gently.

"Ok." Margaret relents though she's not totally convinced.

*

It had been CJ's idea to have dinner at Hogates on Water Street, the sixty year old water front restaurant is full of tourists too busy soaking up the atmosphere to notice the table of senior staffers and their assistants, with what's looming and what they'd been through CJ thought it was a good idea. It seemed most of them were at least half heartedly getting into the holiday spirit though Margaret wasn't totally convinced it was working for Leo.

She takes another mouthful of the cheap wine as their meals begin to be placed in front of them. Sam and Josh cut their way through the thick steaks which accompany their fish, CJ tosses her side salad and applies dressing. Carol and Donna swirl pasta around their forks picking at the seafood scattered through it, but as Margaret's salmon is placed in front of her she seems to loose heart.

"Where are you going?" Ginger asks who's sitting on the other side of her with a mouthful of bread.

"Ladies room." Margaret smiles unconvincingly.

*

Inside the plain bathroom Margaret places her hands either side of the basin concentrating on her breathing. Slowly she turns on the faucet cupping on hand to splash some water on her face. When the nausea, which she suspects is most likely mentally induced has passed she re-adjusts her clothes and heads back to the table.

The first thing she notices is Leo's absence and then his untouched meal like hers.

"Are you all right?" Ginger asks echoing Margaret's earlier concerns for Leo.

"Yeah fine." Margaret assures her forcing a smile onto her face. She thinks little else of Leo for the next five minutes assuming he's in the bathroom as she was before.

"You want another?" Donna asks offering out the wine bottle minutes later bringing Margaret back from a million miles away.

"No I'm..." Margaret starts going to refuse another drink but her wine glass is no longer in front of her.

"Have you seen Leo?" Margaret asks Ginger who's well on her way to not being able to remember the night.

"He excused himself and went outside." Donna answers and immediately Margaret throws her napkin on the table and stands to leave again.

"Did she take my wine glass?" Margaret asks turning back around to Ginger, referring to the blonde waitress.

"Not likely, we've been trying to get her attention for the last ten minutes." Ginger giggles.

*

The night is mild for this time of year as Margaret steps out onto the sidewalk looking to her left and right. The clock inside the restaurant starts its chiming count to nine and despite its muffled position the sound bounces up and down the street.

"Excuse me did you..." Margaret asks two men who are standing smoking outside the doors.

"He went that way." One of them points as he activates a phone call before Margaret can finish her sentence.

Quickly Margaret heads towards the Rochambeau Bridge.

"Are you Ok miss?" A deep male voice asks as Margaret looks over to the other side of the road at the police officer in a patrol car.

"I'm fine thank you." Margaret answers graciously. "Did you pass a man up ahead, in a nice suit?"

"Looks like that Chief of Staff guy?" One of them offers.

Margaret offers no explanation, only nodding.

"He was stepping onto the bridge." The other directs her and inches the car on.

It isn't long until Margaret has covered the fair distance and a tiny figure standing in the middle of the bridge comes into sight up ahead.

The closer she gets the more his slight frame is revealed to her. His shoulders are hunched as he leans over the railing, his jacket askew. Margaret's wine glass wobbles in his hand over the railing, to her relief none of the rich red liquid seems to be missing.

She's no more than six steps from him now and he hasn't heard her yet, footsteps lost in the dark of the night.

"Took you a while." Leo says not looking at her, swirling the wine around the edge of the glass.

"You just left." Margaret says softly stepping closer.

"I wasn't much company." Leo replies looking down into the dark water.

"Leo what's going on?" Margaret asks finally.

"Margaret." Leo sighs focusing his attention back on the glass.

"You've been walking around all week like there's nothing wrong, but in the interim seconds before you realize I'm in the room, the world weighs heavily on your features." Margaret explains.

Leo smiles wryly but says nothing.

"Sometimes you think I'm just a woman sitting outside your door who's at your beck and call, but I've known you too long Leo, I notice every little nuance in your moods and lately it's been a darker shade of pale." 

"I do notice you notice Margaret, you sometimes think I'm just your boss in the adjoining office who thinks little else of you than someone who does his typing." Leo replies and Margaret lets the conversation lapse into silence.

She leans over the railing of the bridge looking back across the water. Leo grabs her attention as he swirls the wine around in the glass again.

"You haven't drunk any of that have you?" Margaret asks knowing full well he hasn't.

Leo smiles in the darkness tipping the wine dangerously close to the edge of the glass. "I just can't have the hangover that I deserve."

Next to him Margaret laughs at the humor.

"There's something that's going to come up." Leo begins, neither of them noticing the light traffic crossing the bridge.

"Drugs?" Margaret guesses.

"No." He answers shaking his head. Margaret watches slowly as the wine inches closer to the edge of the glass and eventually dribbles over the edge. It's lost in the darkness as it falls into the depths of the Potomac.

"Alcohol?" Margaret guesses again and Leo nods pitching the glass back and then propelling it into the river.

"Leo everyone knows, your family, your friends, The President." Margaret reminds him.

"This is different." Leo replies softly.

"Leo." Margaret encourages rubbing his forearm gently.

"I can't..." Leo begins staring wide eyed at her.

"You never told me about that night." Margaret confesses.

"You know?" Leo asks surprised.

"I came into your room, the air was thick with the scent of alcohol and the table covered in bottles, you were asleep on the bed." Margaret explained.

"You cleaned up and put the doona over me." Leo deduces.

"I didn't think anybody needed to see you like you were." Margaret informs him.

"Thank you." Leo says quietly looking down to his shoes and up again.

"That's Ok." Margaret nods.

"It's going to get ugly." Leo warns turning back to look out across the water.

Margaret says nothing for minutes, following Leo's gaze into the distance. Slowly she takes her right hand out of her pocket sliding it equally as comfortably into Leo's, which has been chilled by the night air.

"I know you." Margaret says evenly looking down almost immediately below her.

Leo says nothing waiting for her to say more.

"I know the incredible battles you've fought and won." She pauses again, turning to look at him. "Personal and professional."

"It doesn't matter." Leo reminds her looking up at her.

"When everyone else has turned and run and forgotten what loyalty means...I'll stand by you..."

"Margaret."

"Forever." She finishes.

"I had a drink...and it's never just one."

"Alcohol isn't against the law." Margaret argues.

"It might as well be for an alcoholic." Leo sighs sliding his hand slightly out of hers.

"Everyone has lapses." Margaret reminds him grasping his hand tightly in hers again.

"As an alcoholic I'm not supposed to."

"It's such a stupid petty, trite thing." Margaret sighs.

"Not to the men who are out to create headlines for themselves and would like nothing better to humiliate the President and..."

"I won't permit it." Margaret whispers bending down to kiss him on the forehead and silencing him at the same time. Cautiously Margaret wraps her arms around him pulling him to her body.

"What are you going do?" Leo asks sighing standing comfortably in her embrace.

"Throw them off this bridge." Margaret laughs infecting Leo who laughs along with her.

"Never done this before with you." Leo says of their hug.

"You need it." Margaret informs him bringing her coat around to protect Leo as well.

"Why's that?"

"Because you don't talk to anyone, you live alone...without a cat or dog." Margaret tells him.

"So I should get a dog?" Leo asks.

"I'll get you a dog." Margaret offers and the conversation dies into silence.

"You're really going to throw them off this bridge?" Leo asks after a couple of minutes slowly extracting himself from her arms.

"Maybe." Margaret smiles but it soon fades as she sees his face.

"I just scraped through the last time this was in the news cycle." Leo says his voice soft. "I don't think I'll be able to take the hits and deflect them away from the President this time."

"You will." Margaret says reaching out to straighten and flatten his tie. He looks down watching her fingers run along the silk.

"I don't deserve you."

"Yeah you do, you're a good man Leo McGarry." She cups his face with her hands brushing her lips lightly across his cheek. When she pulls back to come face to face with him it's obvious her actions have affected him, Margaret does nothing to stop him as he brushes the back of her hand across her cheek this time, staring at her like he's memorizing every inch of her face.

It comes as no surprise to her when he lifts himself up to touch his lips with hers, barely at first and meeting no resistance he strengthens and deepens the second kiss oblivious to their public surroundings.

He pulls away slowly, disconnecting himself from the remnants of wine he can taste on her lips. "I'm so sorry." He apologizes his eyes still closed. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"On the contrary I think you do." Margaret offers no further explanation little silence pass between them.

"I don't think you're sure about tomorrow or the next day or what the outcome of all the MS stuff might be, but you're sure about this and you have been for a while." Margaret offers leaning down to kiss him again, her movements' stealth as he'd been rubbing his face, an action that Margaret knew could mean so many things.

"Never done this with you before." Leo whispers his lips inch from hers.

"Shhh, you don't have to be the man here Leo." Margaret instructs before kissing him again.

"I don't feel like going back to the party." Leo tells her resting his forehead against hers when their lips part.

"So we won't." Margaret replies winding an arm around Leo's waist. "Let me take you home, make you some coffee and tuck you into bed."

"Tuck me into bed?" Leo questions smiling.

"You need someone to take care of you and tomorrow I'll be sitting right behind you."

"Forever?" Leo confirms turning to look at her.

"Right beside you forever." Margaret affirms.

*


End file.
